


Possession Without Control

by FireThatFox



Series: Japanese Folklore, Myths and legends [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Hate to Love, Sasori is trapped in a book, mythical concepts, not a typical yokai or oni fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25524907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireThatFox/pseuds/FireThatFox
Summary: Books can be deceiving.  Words can be manipulative...if you let them.  Opening a book, brought Sakura's past back to life.  Only Sasori isn't alive and she isn't quite dead.  He isn't the puppet she knew him as and she is no longer the girl who had once earned his begrudging respect.  It's a different world for both of them.‘This is the book of the magician whose name can not be said. Once uttered you’re bound to the living and the dead. Take heed these words fair maiden your soul is most at risk. The devil makes the bargain but the demon craves the kiss.’
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Sasori, Haruno Sakura/Sasori
Series: Japanese Folklore, Myths and legends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870282
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	Possession Without Control

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't like how I had started this, and since it was the beginning, I deleted the work and changed the end of this first chapter. I set Sasori free a little too soon...
> 
> Sasori: I disagree.

“What’s this Ino?” Sakura asked her friend, pulling a dusty book from the bottom of the last box in the Yamanaka family shrine.

“A book.” Ino grins at her friend who rolls her eyes.

“Good pile or donate pile?” Sakura asks, turning the book over in her hands to brush the dust off of the cover.

“Um, donate. All the stuff in that box is old and useless.” Ino doesn't even bother looking at the box her friend has in her hands.

“Are you sure, it looks kinda cool. Old I mean.” Sakura tries to open the book but it won’t open for her, how odd, there’s no seal or lock of any kind on it that she can tell.

“You can have it if you want, I know you like books more than men.” Ino rolls her eyes at her friend who has refused every blind date for the last three years she has tried to set her up on.

“You don’t mind?” Sakura looks down at the book again, it seems to vibrate in her hands. It’s worn leather cover warm to the touch, thumping like a heartbeat. “Huh?”

“Yeah yeah, you can have it, it’s all yours, I relinquish ownership of it to you Sakura Haruno as Ino Yamanaka of the clan Yamanaka head.” Ino says with a mock flourish bowing low as both women erupt into giggles.

“Thanks Ino.” Sakura tucks the book into her pouch, ignoring the small tingling sensation in her fingers where they ghosted the spine. She would look at it later when she had more time. Right now her and Ino had to finish cleaning out the shrine in the back of the Yamanaka compound. Ino was being officially named the new clan head of the Yamanaka clan tomorrow afternoon.

The war was over and life moved on. Sakura’s old sensei Hatake Kakashi was the Hokage and Uzumaki Naruto her old teammate was Hokage in training. Uchiha Sasuke was off who knew where on solo missions for the village because he felt he needed to redeem himself for all the wrong he had caused. Sakura agreed with that sentimentality all too well.

Many lives had been lost, including Ino’s father Inoichi, the former clan head of the Yamanaka. The naming ceremony would be both a joyous and a sad event. Another reminder of their profession, of their survival, their strength. They had died so others could survive. Sakura and Ino survived so others could be taught and carry on the will of fire that made Konoha what it was, had been and would be in the future.

Sakura smiled as she looked around the Yamanaka compound. Ino’s family was smiling, they were here, they had lived. Sakura didn’t know any family that hadn’t been touched by the war, in any nation, but they would endure...they were shinobi.

“That’s the last box.” Ino smiled at a distant Yamanaka cousin, waved and pulled Sakura by the arm into the Yamanaka’s main house for tea.

“Thanks for your help Forehead. It would have taken me forever to go through all of that old dusty junk.” Ino stirred a little sugar into her tea before taking a sip and sighing dramatically.

“No problem Pig. I’m going to head out though, I have a shift at the hospital tonight and I don’t want to be late. Since Shisou retired she’s been at the hospital more.” Sakura drank her tea quickly then hugged her friend goodbye.

Ten hours later, with the moon high in the sky, Sakura dragged her tired feet up the stairs to her little house at the far side of the village. Tsunade had gifted it to her before retiring as Hokage for her war efforts and had helped Sakura furnish it. Sakura’s parents had died in the war, many civilians had. Tsunade had always been like a mother to Sakura and after the war, she had stepped fully into the role seamlessly.

The house was small but not cramped. Sakura didn’t need a lot of space, it was just her after all. Her books and scrolls took up most of the room. Tenzo had lined the entire wall of her living room with bookshelves for her and had made her a small sitting porch along the back by the woods. Kakashi had donated a whole set of Icha Icha to her already substantial library, claiming no library was complete without it.

Other odds and ends were given to her by friends and with the few purchases she had made herself, she had a very comfortable little home. She was...happy. She mourned her parents of course and the friends she had lost but she had also gained many more friends through the allied Shinobi Forces. Now she had friends not only in Konoha but all over the five great nations.

Sakura set her pouch down on her kitchen counter and sighed. It had been a long night. The war was over but missions still came in, less dangerous ones since the ninja world was at peace but there were still injured to look after.

She hummed a gentle tune as she set her rice maker to cook and pulled some vegetables from her crisper. A quick vegetable stir fry and then she would go to bed. She had the day off tomorrow and planned on spending the day in her newly dug garden planting seeds and sectioning it off for medicinal herbs and flowers.

She didn’t need to get ready for the Yamanaka naming ceremony until early evening, she had all day to bask in fresh dirt, plants and sun. She was really looking forward to it.

Sakura cut up the vegetables and set them to simmer in an inch of water while she rummaged through her pack. Taking out the book Ino had given her she turned it over again in her hand, a strange tingling feeling coming over her. Sakura licked her lips and frowned, how odd. Sizzling from her stove top took her attention from the book, setting it down beside her pouch she moved to the stove and stirred in the oil.

Turning back around to look at the book she shook her head. She was being silly. Sakura laughed at herself out loud, she must be more tired than she thought. Her rice cooker beeped and her vegetables were done so she pulled a bowl down from her cabinet and dished her rice and food out of her pan. Sitting comfortably at her table she reached for the book.

As her fingers traced the sketching on the spine her fingers tingled again making her shiver. No, she hadn’t imagined it. With a quick look around her apartment, she felt so silly, she hesitantly opened the book.

‘This is the book of the magician whose name can not be said. Once uttered you’re bound to the living and the dead. Take heed these words fair maiden your soul is most at risk. The Devil makes the bargain but the demon craves the kiss.’

Sakura’s eye brows rose to her hairline...what strange poetry. She swallowed and took a bite of her food. The tingling in her fingers had stopped, had it been a warning. The words read like a warning, ‘take heed’, was a warning if she had ever read one before.

Sakura shut the cover of the book and turned it over looking at the back. There was no writing there, nor on the cover. She held the book up and sideways, no title on the spine either. Sakura set the book down and opened it to the first page and re read the words. Odd. It definitely wasn’t like any book she had read before. She was intrigued. She turned the page.

‘To continue on you must be true in both heart and mind. A clever demon the magician is, a challenge you will find. Be aware, to beware, you don’t lose your heart. He will devour you, think before you start.’

“So many warnings, it’s like they don’t want you to read the book.” Sakura giggled nervously to herself.

Sakura turned to the next page and froze. 

An ink drawing, no wait...Sakura brought the book closer to her eyes, it was...blood, dried blood. Sakura sat back in her chair and looked at the picture before her that stretched across both of the pages. It was dark, shadowed and hard to make out but she saw the outline of a man, with slender hands, and slender form sitting at a workbench. His back was hunched but gracefully drawn and his eyes were...focused and intense as he worked over...what looked like a human arm…

Sakura gasped, he looked like...but that was impossible. She laughed a nervous laugh to herself.

Sakura’s heart beat in her chest, it pulsed in time with the aching in her head. She could feel a closeness, like the walls of her home were closing in on her. She closed her eyes. Flashes of red and amber lit up the dark behind her lids. It’s a dream, just a nightmare, a panic attack because he looks like, but impossible...it’s impossible. She tried to calm her breath.

“Impossible” She gasped in shock, clutching her hand to her chest. Gasping for air she pushed back from the table and stood up, her hands going to her head, her fingers glowed green as she pushed her healing chakra into her temples to soothe the aching pain.

After settling herself she reached down for her bowl of food, her eyes caught the picture of the book, still open, displayed before her widening eyes...the man...had moved. He stood away from his work table, no longer sitting but looking...at her a small devious smirk on his lips, amber eyes glowing like the rising sun watching her every move. Hair red, dark red like the blood that refused to pump through her veins, it felt like her heart had stopped.

Sakura knew his name, ‘Sasori’, she thought of the Puppet master she had fought and helped kill seven years ago, the pain in her chest shot through her from head to foot, burning her inner flesh, her heart...she felt like she was falling...falling, then nothing.

‘Sasori.’ His name flooded her senses as she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the damp cool air of the cave where he had died, she could almost hear the water of the river, a trickle of sweat ran down her back...fear, she was still afraid of him.

He had haunted her dreams, had been the catalyst of all of her nightmares even after the war and everything she had seen, nothing had scared her, like this man. She looked back down at the pages of the open book where he watched her patiently, calmly as if he were...waiting for something.

The redhead stood at the edge of the page looking out at her, that same cold amber in his eyes, that same arrogant lift of his lips as he continued to smirk at her. Thumbing back a lock of pastel pink hair from her eyes as she watched him watch her, she swallowed, her fingers running along the seam of the pages. She watched as he pulled a kunai from his sleeve and ran it vertically up and down in front of himself through the ‘air’, she watched with wide eyes as the paper split and tore, then mended itself before her eyes, like flesh.

A mild look of disdain crossed his face and he ‘sighed’...was he trapped? 

“Ridiculous.” Sakura said again as if to convince herself.

“You’re dead.” Sakura glared at the small figure in the book. “I killed you with Granny Chiyo, you’re dead.”

His hair fell over his eyes as he cocked his head to the side as if to say, “Am I?”

“Yes!” Sakura grabbed the book and slammed it shut. She could feel the leather warm in her hands, she could almost hear his arrogant aristocratic voice in her head.

“For now.” He seemed to say to her through the pulsation in her hands.


End file.
